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Did Paleoamericans Reach South America First?

In “ Textbook Story of How Humans Populated America is Biologically Unviable, Study Finds ”, recently published in Ancient Origins, it was noted that DNA studies indicate that people could not have crossed the Beringia land bridge to enter the Americas 13,000 years ago because the “entry route was biologically unviable”. Although this finding by geneticists is surprising, it adds even more mystery to the archaeological evidence that anatomically modern humans were in South America tens of thousands of years before Ice Age people could have crossed a viable land bridge between Alaska and Siberia.

The earliest dates for habitation of the American continent to occur below Canada in South America are highly suggestive that the earliest settlers on the American continents came from Africa before the Ice melted at the Bering Strait and moved northward as the ice melted. An African origin for these people is a good fit because Ocean Currents would have carried migrants from Africa to the Americas, since there were no Ice Age sheets of ice to block passage across the southern Atlantic.

Important Archeological Sites

Dr. Bryan, in Natural History has noted many sites where PaleoAmericans have left us evidence of human habitation, including the pebble tools at Monte Verde in Chile (c.32,000 Before Present), rock paintings at Pedra Furada in Brazil (c.22,000 BP), and mastodon hunting in Venezuela and Colombia (c.13,000 BP). These discoveries have led some researchers to believe that the Americas were first settled from South America.

The main evidence from the ancient Americans are prehistoric tools and rock art, like those found by Dr. Nieda Guidon. Today archaeologists have found sites of human occupation from Canada to Chile that range between 20,000 and 100,000 years old. Guidon, in numerous articles claims that Africans were in Brazil between 65,000-100,000 years ago. Guidon also claims that man was at the Brazilian sites 65,000 years ago. She told the New York Times that her dating of human populations in Brazil 100,000 years ago was based on the presence of ancient fire and tools of human craftsmanship at habitation sites.

Martin and R. G. Klein, after discussing the evidence of mastodon hunting in Venezuela 13,000 years ago, observed that: "The thought that the fossil record of South America is much richer in evidence of early archaeological associations than many believed is indeed provocative.... Have the earliest hunters been overlooked in North America? “

Warwick Bray has pointed out that there are numerous sites in North and South America which are over 35,000 years old. A.L. Bryan noted that these sites include, the Old Crow Basin (c.38,000 BC) in Canada; Orogrande Cave (c.36,000 BC) in the United States; and Pedra Furada (c.45,000 BC) in Brazil.

Using craniometric quantitative analysis and multivariate methods, Dr. Neves determined that Paleo Americans were either Australian, African or Melanesians. The research of Neves indicated that the ancient Americans represent two populations, PaleoAmericans who were phenotypically African, Australian or Melanesian and an Asiatic population that appears to have arrived in the Americas after 6000 BC.

Archaeologist have reconstructed the faces of ancient Americans from Brazil and Mexico. These faces are based on the skeletal remains dating back to 12,000BC. The PaleoAmericans resemble the first Europeans.

PaleoAmericans and First European

Researchers working on the prehistoric cultures of these ancient people note that they resemble the Black Variety of humanity, instead of contemporary Native Americans. The Black Variety include the Blacks of Africa, Australia, and the South Pacific.

Dr. Chatters, who found Naia's skeleton, told Smithsonian Magazine that: “The small number of early American specimens discovered so far have smaller and shorter faces and longer and narrower skulls than later Native Americans, more closely resembling the modern people of Africa, Australia, and the South Pacific. "This has led to speculation that perhaps the first Americans and Native Americans came from different homelands," Chatters continues, "or migrated from Asia at different stages in their evolution."

A cast of Luzia's skull at the National Museum of Natural History. (CC BY-SA 2.0 )

Although Dr. Chatters believes the PaleoAmericans came from Asia, this seems unlikely, because of the Ice sheet that blocked migration from Asia into the Americas. C. Vance Haynes noted that: "If people have been in South America for over 30,000 years, or even 20,000 years, why are there so few sites? [....]One possible answer is that they were so few in number; another is that South America was somehow initially populated from directions other than north until Clovis appeared".

The fact that the Beringia land bridge was unviable 15,000 years ago make it unlikely that during the Ice Age man would have been able to walk or to sail from Asia to South America at this time. As a result, these people were probably from Africa, as suggested by Dr. Guidon.

Prehistoric Sea Travel

In summary, the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska was unviable before 13,000 BC. Even though man could not enter the Americas until after 14,000 years ago, man was probably in South America as early 100,000 years ago, according to Dr. Guidon’s research in Brazil.

The first people in the Americas are called PaleoAmericans. The research of Chatters and Neves indicate that the PaleoAmericans were not Asiatic. These researchers claim the PaleoAmericans, “more closely resembl[ed] the modern people of Africa, Australia, and the South Pacific.”

The first Americans probably came to the Americas by sea, due to the unviable land route to the Americas before 13,000 BC. As a result, we must agree with Guidon that man probably traveled from Africa to settle prehistoric America.

The archaeological evidence indicates that PaleoAmericans settled South America before North America, and that these Americans did not belong to the Clovis culture. Africa is the most likely origin of the PaleoAmericans, because the Ice sheet along the Pacific shoreline of North America, Siberia and Alaska, would have made the sea route from Asia or Europe unviable 65,000 years ago. The Dufuna boat dating back to 8,000 BC, shows that Africans had boats at this early date. The culture associated with the Dufuna boat dates back to 20,000 years ago.

Neves, W. A. and Pucciarelli, H. M. 1990. The origins of the first Americans: an analysis based onthe cranial morphology of early South American human remains. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 81: 247.

Neves, W. A. and Pucciarelli, H. M. 1991. Morphological affinities of the first Americans: an exploratory analysis based on early South American human remains. Journal of Human Evolution, 21: 261–73.

Neves, W. A. and Meyer, D. 1993. The contribution of the morphology of early South and Northamerican skeletal remains to the understanding of the peopling of the Americas. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 16 (Suppl): 150–1.

Clyde Winters

Dr. Clyde Winters is an Educator , Anthropologist and Linguist. He has taught Education and Linguistics at Saint Xavier University -Chicago. Dr. Winters is the author of numerous articles on anthropology, archeogenetics and linguistics. His articles have appeared in the Journal... Read More

Comments

The Negro is used to identify Black people in Sub-Saharan Africa, Melanesia and Australia. I am not living in the 1990’s the citations I posted are all the latest research.

There is no evidence in the articles you posted of amh in Asia 45,00 years ago in Eurasia. The http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/rich-sexual-past-between-modern-humans-and-neandertals-revealed This paper mentions possible interbreeding between Denisovans and 440,000-year-old ancestors of Neandertals. Moreover the article noted that “Last year, researchers discovered that a 40,000-year-old modern human from Romania had a Neandertal great-great-great grandparent—but this Neandertal genome does not live on in present-day humans “. This makes it clear that the genome was not passed on so this does not support your theory about hybrid Anatomically modern human-Neanderthal population.

You said “ I said they left Africa 60,000 years bp, and stopped in the Levant for a while and mixed with Neanderthals about 55,000 years bp. The last common ancestor of Europeans and Native Americans lived in what is today So Russia about 45,000 years bp. Since you love articles so much.. “ This is false. There is no evidence that amh were in the Levant 60kya, or the ancestor of Native Americans and Europeans living in Siberia 45kya. The earliest examples of amh in Euroasia come from Spain and date to 45,000bp not the Levant.In the http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12736.html#affil-auth article there is discussion of an amh, Mal’ta man, dating to 24kya—not 45kya as you allege.

The Qafzeh-Skhul hominids are important to this discussion because you claim the first hybrid AMH-Neanderthal appeared in the Levant, but as noted by T. Holliday the ancient people in the Levant are identified as Negroes, or Sub-Saharan Africans.

Stop trying to steal the heritage of the Black Native Americans. Stop making things up.

Again, there's a world of difference between using craniometry to assign a skull to a contemporary population and using it to determine the racial affinities of an ancient skull to a modern population. Forensic science is about the only place it's useful in the age of genomic identification.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. I said they left Africa 60,000 years bp, and stopped in the Levant for a while and mixed with Neanderthals about 55,000 years bp. The last common ancestor of Europeans and Native Americans lived in what is today So Russia about 45,000 years bp. Since you love articles so much...here's a link.

In fact the 1st out of Africa event is reliably dated to between 70,000 and 80,000 years ago (the southern migration). Those people were tha ancestors of today's Andaman Islanders, Negritos, Melanesians, Trobriand Islanders, Papuans and Australian Aborigines.They are a monophyletic group and only distantly related to all other humans. BTW, there is evidence of another migration of AMH out of Africa pre 100,000 years bp but, these people seem to cave been absorbed into the Altai Mt population of Neanderthals and left no living descendants.

Um...humans and Neanderthals did not interbreed? Where have you been for the last 5 years? The non sub Saharan human genome is about 20% Neanderthal. Every non African human has between 2 and 5% Neanderthal genes.

Now the Es Skhul, Qafzhe and Et Tabun hominids are only 20,000 years old? Laughable! Try 80-120,000 years bp! Where do you get your information?

OK, to be fair, I see where the confusion lays. The dates of 20,000 -4,000 bp are far to late to test the hypothesis that humans and Neanderthals hybridized. It is also true that Africans did migrate to the Levant at about this time...and then migrated back into Africa and back again. However, by 20,000 bp Neanderthals were functionally extinct so, you wouldn't expect to find hybrid people in that place at that time. (remember, I said all NON AFRICANS have Neanderthal genes?)
Earlier remains from the Mt Carmel region tell a different story. The contemporary material from those same caves dated between 80 and 120,000 years bp, the so called Mt Carmel Hominids, show a great example of hybrid features and may reflect the first AMH migration out of Africa. (remember those hybrids in the Altai?). Unfortunately, we have no DNA to say either way.

In other words, the data you have presented does not preclude of contradict my statement at all.

Once again..."Negroid" is a descriptive term and does not have anything to do with racial ancestry. It's like saying "some Africans have epicanthic folds, a typically Asiatic trait". This does not mean that Africans are of Asian descent. It simply indicated that some African populations share a trait that is commonly seen in Asians. In other words, their eyes look like the eyes of Asians. These terms have no scientific validity.

"The Qafzeh-Skhul hominids have sometimes been refered to as "Proto-CroMagnons" (e.g., Howell 1957; Vandermeersch 1996) because of their presumed similarity to the famous Aurignacian-associated hominids from Western Europe....Specifically [Brace], he notes that "in both the details of its dental and craniological size and from Qafzeh is an unlikely proto-Cro-Magnon, but it makes a fine model for the ancestors of modern sub-Saharan Africans"(p.63).

How is this statement even germane to the discussion at hand?

LOL, the rest of your post is just a statement of the obvious. No meat on that bone at all. All explained away in my previous statements.

"In conclusion, Willy you are propagating fabrications about the origin of East Asians, Europeans and Native Americans, and the Out of Africa event. Craniofacial evidence can identify ancient populations, and your claims about Native Americans originating from a mythical Central Asian AMH-Neanderthal hybridized population lacks any foundation. Stop making up falsehoods, in an attempt to make yourself right."

As I have said before, you need to broaden your reading material. The above statement is ridiculously out of date. Even the most hardened anti hybrid purists have had to acknowledge that the genomic evidence is incontrovertible. You're still living in the 90s.

Might I suggest you look at the genomic studies of Svante Paabo of the max Plank Institute or Dr Spencer Wells work on genomic tracking of human migrations?

Crainometric analysis to determine the racial affinities of ancient populations has always been useful in anthropology. No professional archaeologist has challenged the identification of the PaleoAmericans and contemporary mongoloid, as two different populations. This indicates that YOU CAN RELY UPON SKULL SHAPE TO DETERMINE RACIAL AFFINITIES.

Willy you should stop making up “stuff”. Cite one research paper where the authors claim “Native Americans, Europeans and East Asians are descended from a second (northern) migration from Africa to central Asia (the "Stan" Republics of southern Russia) about 60,000 years ago”. This is a complete lie because most researchers cite the date of 60kya, as the date for the first out of Africa (OoA) event. Explain , how anatomically modern humans (amh) were expanding from Africa, and Central Asia at the same time.

Another lie you made up in your post above is the following ” Native Americans, Europeans and East Asians are descended from a second (northern) migration from Africa to central Asia (the "Stan" Republics of southern Russia) about 60,000 years ago. They seem to have stopped for a while in the Levant where they hybridized with progressive Neanderthals before continuing northward. In the Kazakhstan region they split. Ancestral Europeans went west, Ancestral Asians/Native Americans went east. Between the Northern and Southern migrations were the Himalaya mountains so, there was little mixture between the two until post glacial migrations. This is well established FACT. “ First of all, this statement is false, it is an invention of your own imagination , because, there was no amh population in the Levant that “hybridized with progressive Neanderthals “, this is a pure lie—NOT A FACT.

The research indicates that the anatomically modern human (amh) population in the Levant at this time was Sub-Saharan African, not a AMH-Neanderthal hybridized group. Trenton W. Holliday,in "Evolution at the Crossroads: Modern Human Emergence in Western Asia, American Anthropologist,102(1) [2000], tested the hypothesis that if modern Africans had dispersed into the Levant from Africa , "tropically adapted hominids" would be represented in the archaeological history of the Lavant, especially in relation to the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids. This researcher found that the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids (20,000-10,000),were assigned to the Sub-Saharan population, along with the Natufians samples (4000 BP).

Holliday confirmed his hypothesis that the replacement of the Neanderthal people were Sub-Saharan Africans. This shows that there were no AMH-Neanderthal hybridized population in the Middle East between 20,000-4,000BP.

Below are a few quotes from the paper by Holliday they show that the population at this time were Negroid in Southwest Asia not an AMH-Neanderthal hybridized population .

"In this light, some of the more robust assignments (albeit not 95% of the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids to the sub-Saharan African sample (e.g., Qafzeh 8 at 85%, Skhul 4 at 71%) are remarkable indeed" (p. 62).

"The Qafzeh-Skhul hominids have sometimes been refered to as "Proto-CroMagnons" (e.g., Howell 1957; Vandermeersch 1996) because of their presumed similarity to the famous Aurignacian-associated hominids from Western Europe....Specifically [Brace], he notes that "in both the details of its dental and craniological size and from Qafzeh is an unlikely proto-Cro-Magnon, but it makes a fine model for the ancestors of modern sub-Saharan Africans"(p.63).

"[T]aken as a whole, the work of Tchernov seems to support the findings of the current research that the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids have their origins in Africa, while the Neanderthals are from cold to temperate biomes"(p.64).

"The current study demonstrates African-like affinities in the body shape of the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids. This finding is consistent with craniofacial evidence (Brace 1996) and with zooarchaeological data indicating the presence of African fauna at Qafzeh (Rabinovich and Tchernov 1995; Tchernov 1988, 1992)" (p.64).

See these quotes in Holiday, T. (2000). Evolution at the Crossroads: Modern Human Emergence in Western Asia, American Anthropologist,102(1) .

In conclusion, Willy you are propagating fabrications about the origin of East Asians, Europeans and Native Americans, and the Out of Africa event. Craniofacial evidence can identify ancient populations, and your claims about Native Americans originating from a mythical Central Asian AMH-Neanderthal hybridized population lacks any foundation. Stop making up falsehoods, in an attempt to make yourself right.

Apples to oranges my friend. The reason we use forensic morphometrics to ID murder victims is simply because we have a "snapshot" of the various races as they exist at this particular time, In 10,000 years those physical models will probably not hold up. That's how fast the shape of the human skull changes. Heck, something as simple as a childhood change in diet can influence the final shape of the adult skull and give an appearance different from the parent's. This is why 19th and early 20th century anthropomatrists abandoned their brachiocephaly vs dolichocephaly theories. YOU CAN NOT RELY UPON SKULL SHAPE TO DETERMINE RACIAL AFFINITIES over long periods of time. Only genetic studies are able to determine this. Genetics have quite clearly demonstrated that ALL Native Americans are descended from a single ancestral population. They have also demonstrated that Africans, Pacific Islanders and Melanesians ARE NOT directly ancestral to Native Americans. Both Africans and Native Americans belong to unique Mitochondrial haplogroups that are only distantly related. These haplogroups have been used to track human migrations both spatially and temporally. It is VERY CLEAR that Ancestral Africans for the most part remained in Africa while ancestral Melanesians/Australians are descended from the first (southern) migration out of Africa (70,000 to 50,000 years bp). Native Americans, Europeans and East Asians are descended from a second (northern) migration from Africa to central Asia (the "Stan" Republics of southern Russia) about 60,000 years ago. They seem to have stopped for a while in the Levant where they hybridized with progressive Neanderthals before continuing northward. In the Kazakhstan region they split. Ancestral Europeans went west, Ancestral Asians/Native Americans went east.Between the Northern and Southern migrations were the Himalaya mountains so, there was little mixture between the two until post glacial migrations. This is well established FACT. There is simply no direct ancestral genetic connection between Africans, Pacific Islanders (except in western So America) and Melanesia. Native Americans ARE NOT directly related to any of those groups. Period. Because they look alike means NOTHING. As to the Bocotudo being of Polynesian descent...So? 1) As noted, the western So America has a strong Polynesian component due to admixture with Rapa Nui (Easter Islanders). 2) There is also the matter of "Balckbirding". A horrific 18th century practice in which entire Pacific Island populations were kidnapped by Spanish and Portuguese slavers and sold off in So America and the Caribbean islands. So, it's not surprising to find Melanesian genetics in that area. BTW, "pre 19th century" is not "Ancient". When a paper makes statements as dubious as that you know there's something hinky going on. One last point. I can't help but notice that the papers you cite are always written by the same authors. Relying upon dubious claims made by a small group of authors with a personal stake in their results is not the best practice. Might I suggest you broaden your horizons a bit and look at other sources?

Crainometry has never been abandon, it is used today to determine the ancestry of murder victims in Forensics. There are many papers linking Africans Melanesians and Native Americans. There is also plenty of empirical evidence placing amh in America before 30kya. I have already presented much of this evidence.

There is archaeological evidence linking Africans and Melanesians, and Melanesians and Native Americans. Neves etc., make it clear that the paleoamericans were phenotypically Melanesian, African or Australian.The Botocudos of Brazil are classified as Melanesian in origin. As a result, when Neves says the Botocudos are related to paleoamerican it was based on the fact that phenotypically they were African or Melanesian.

South Brazilian Native Americans came from Melanesia. This is especially true for the Botocudos.The Botocudos are descendants of Meleanesians and Melanesians are phenotypically Negroes. See: A.S. Malaspinas et al,, Two ancient human genomes reveal Polynesian ancestry among the indigenous Botocudos of Brazil. Curr Biol. 2014 Nov 3;24(21):R1035-7. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.078. Epub 2014 Oct 23.Abstract“Understanding the peopling of the Americas remains an important and challenging question. Here, we present (14)C dates, and morphological, isotopic and genomic sequence data from two human skulls from the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, part of one of the indigenous groups known as 'Botocudos'. We find that their genomic ancestry is Polynesian, with no detectable Native American component. Radiocarbon analysis of the skulls shows that the individuals had died prior to the beginning of the 19th century. Our findings could either represent genomic evidence of Polynesians reaching South America during their Pacific expansion, or European-mediated transport.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/term=Bastos%20M%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=25455029

The Botocudo were a Native American tribe of Brazil. They were also called Aimoré (Aymore, Aimboré) . The name Botocudo comes from the Portuguese term: botoque, a plug. This was an allusion to the wooden disks or tembetás worn in their lips and ears of people who belonged to these tribes. The Botocudo had many names for themselves. Some Boyocudos called themselves Nac-nanuk or Nac-poruk. The name Nac-nanuk or Nac-poruk means "sons of the soil". Over the centuries the Botocudos disappeared. Paul Ehrenreich estimated their population at 5,000 in 1884. By April 1939, there was only 68 Botocudo alive in Eastern Brazil.

Pedra Furada, Dr.Nieda Guidon in numerous articles claims that Africans were in Brazil between 65,000-100,000 years ago. Dr. Guidon claims that man was at the Brazilian sites for early Americans, 65,000 years ago. She told the New York Times, that her dating of human populations in Brazil 100,000 years ago , was based on the presence of ancient fire and tools of human craftsmanship at human habitation sites.

Guidon, N. and Delibrias, G. 1986. “Carbon-14 dates point to man in the Americas 32,000 years ago.” Nature 321:769-771.

Guidon, N., and B. Arnaud. 1991. “The chronology of the New World: Two faces of one reality.” World Arch. 23(2):167-178.

Meltzer, David J.; Adovasio, James M.; Dillehay, Tom D in “On a Pleistocene human occupation at Pedra Furada, Brazil”, noted that :” The excavations at Pedra Furada have produced a total of 55 radiocarbon determinations of which 46 are currently accepted (TABLE 1; Paranti 1993a; pers. comm.); 32 of these are in the Pedra Furada phase. The Pedra Furada phase is further divided into three sub-phases. The sub-phases and their ages are: PF1, from 48,000 to 35,000 b.p.; PF2, from 32,160 to 25,000 b.p.; and PF3, from 21,400 to 14,300 b.p. (see TABLE 1, and Paranti 1993a: 307-8)”, See: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/On+a+Pleistocene+human+occupation+at+Pedra+Furada,+Brazil.-a016352243

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